This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

That’s what the neuroscientist-comedian-turned-author reveals in his new book, The Idiot BrainThe Idiot Brain: A Neuroscientist Explains What Your Head is Really Up To (Harper Collins: $32.99).

All our brains tend to behave in bizarre ways. They have an ego. Time does really fly when the brain is having fun. And alcohol can sometimes improve memory.

In calling the brain an idiot, Burnett performs a kind of service: squashing the misconception that the brain is insurmountable.

“Everyone sees it as this daunting, majestic, very complex, almost unknowable thing,” says the Wales-based comedian and lecturer. “I didn’t want to write one of these reverential brain books. I don’t think the brain is some sort of perfect object. (The Idiot Brain is) an attempt to puncture the mystique of the brain, which is more helpful than cynical.”

Article Continued Below

Burnett spoke with the Star by phone about his funny and enlightening new book.

You say you were kind of an odd-man-out in your family, the first to go to university. How did that shape your career?

That’s what got me into the brain in the first place. I was thinking, “Why am I different than my nearest and dearest?” I haven’t really found a good answer, but I did pick up a lot of brain books along the way. It’s worth asking questions about yourself, I suppose.

So you think the brain is not so complicated after all?

It’s this reverence that people treat it with that is sort of unhelpful because it discourages people from trying to learn about it or think about it because it’s sort of daunting.

We all have these idiot brains, as you’re calling them, right?

The brain in general, yes, not specific people.

So it’s not specific to idiots?

No (laughs). I’ve been accused of that. It’s the brain as a thing, not someone’s brain.

You say intelligent people are sometimes less confident. It’s like that Kanye West lyric, “the people highest up got the lowest self-esteem.”

That’s pretty much it. Anyone in a high-flying field — it’s particularly prone to women in male-dominated fields — there’s something called “impostor syndrome,” whereby no matter how high they advance in the ranks, they assume they’re just bluffing. They’re just getting away with it whereas everyone else around them knows exactly what they’re doing. But there are also plenty of incredibly talented people who are incredibly patronizing and smug.

Is it possible then to resist the brain’s tendency toward idiocy?

Yes, actually. A lot of people have asked if I’m trying to write a self-help book in that regard. It could sort of be used that way. It’s different from a self-help book in that I don’t actually tell anyone what to do at any point. I don’t say “This is how you fix that.” I just give you the knowledge you need to appreciate what’s happening. If you’re consciously aware of it you should, or could, be able to compensate for it.

It’s nice to hear someone rip the rug out from under the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, the psychological questionnaire adopted by a lot of businesses in the hiring process.

They like it because it makes people understandable. Myers-Briggs suggests you can put people into boxes, manage by numbers or calculations, and they should behave in certain set patterns. Even if you do a Myers-Briggs test in an interview, people are smart enough to get around it. They ask you, “Are you a good team player?” Of course you say yes. There’s not actually any science to it. It doesn’t have any basis in what we could call scientific reality.

You tackle a lot in this book. What is possibly next? Will you stay with the “idiot brain?”

I’m sort of stuck with my own (laughs). No real plans or possibilities to change it. I’m looking into a second (book) with the publishers; lots of ideas being thrown around. Hopefully the next one I’ll expand a certain area a bit more rather than just try to cover everything.

Brain Games

Our brains are alcohol-dependent, narcissistic and adrenalin-addicted smart alecks that like to play games on us. These are just a few of the idiotic traits Burnett lays out in The Idiot Brain.

Egotistical

Do you remember doing better in that foot race or job interview than you actually did in reality? It might by your brain trying to motivate you. Since we remember everything from our own perspective, the brain constructs an “egocentric” memory.

“It’s not that we’re lying,” says Burnett. “It’s just that’s how our brain decides to tweak things to sort of give us a better self opinion, improve our self-worth.”

Drinkers

The “hair of the dog” hangover solution might be advised if you need to remember something important. Alcohol can improve your memory in some cases. When a new memory is formed, it’s not just one piece of information that is logged, but “the entire context in which the memory was acquired that is remembered too,” says Burnett. You might remember something more easily when “you are as drunk as you were when you first made that memory.” Drink responsibly.

Thrill seekers

Horror movie junkies be warned: your wiring might be mixed up. “There seems to be a certain personality type called ‘thrill seekers,’ ” says Burnett. Where one person needs a safer and more mainstream thrill, some will seek out horror films and skydiving for theirs.

“They become too used to it. They start experiencing certain thrills and become hooked to the adrenalin rush,” he says. “One argument is that they have a different network of neurons which process pleasure and stimulation.”

Smart alecks

Being smart can be a burden in the brain. More intelligent people are often aware of how little they know and sometimes lack confidence. “They call it the Dunning-Kruger effect, that people who are unintelligent don’t realize that they are unintelligent,” says Burnett. “Therefore say and do things which look ridiculous on the outside, but they do them with extreme confidence because they don’t know any better.”

Time flies

This one, Burnett attests, isn’t easy to measure in a lab. “One of the least fun places you can go to is a laboratory to take part in an experiment. Scientists aren’t really good at instilling fun in people,” he jokes.

But time does seem to fly when you’re engaged in what’s going on around you and aren’t paying attention to the passage of time. “If you’re somewhere boring like a doctor’s waiting room, there’s a lot less stimulation going on. That occupies more of your brain space.”

The seventh sense

Forget the sixth sense — what about a seventh, eighth or ninth? There are actually many secondary senses processed in the brain to detect the outside world. One is called “proprioception,” an awareness of where we are in space. If you make a fist behind your back, you don’t have to see your hand to know you’re making a fist. Others scientists consider detection of temperature and even pain to be senses.

More from the Toronto Star & Partners

LOADING

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com